Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature
Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature
1607-6192
2713-2226
IWL RAS
https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2025-24-615-680
Research Article
Articles
MEMOIRIAL RECORDS OF THE 16th – 19th CENTURIES AS EXTRATEXTS IN THE RUSSIAN BOOK CULTURE
Poliakov
Ivan A.
old-rus@imli.ru
Smirnova
Maria A.
old-rus@imli.ru
2025
24
615
680
Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS
2026
The article examines the study of records of death in the Russian book culture of the Modern Era. The object of the study was funeral extratexts made on the margins and blank pages of handwritten and printed books, as well as various documents in the 16th–19th centuries. The article analyzes all currently known autobiographical records of the 16th–17th centuries, as well as individual examples of extratexts from the 18th–19th centuries. Initially made exclusively for family church commemoration, over time such records acquired a number of other functions related to family memory. In some cases, scattered notes about the death of family members became the basis for monuments of the early autobiographical genre — family chroniclers, proto-diaries, and biographies. The article examines the evolution of the form of death records, the social structure of the authors, the circle of commemorated persons, and sources of information about the biographies of deceased relatives. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of documents and books into which extratexts were introduced, as well as to the methods of their arrangement. In conclusion, the authors summarize the main observations of the culture of written memory, which retained its main features until the beginning of the 20th century.
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